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Tax Preparers

It's a bright outlook for

This career will grow rapidly in the next few years.

Learn more about what they do.

Prepare tax returns for individuals or small businesses.

Related: Accountants & Auditors Bookkeeping, Accounting, & Auditing Clerks Credit Counselors Personal Financial Advisors Tax Examiners & Collectors, & Revenue Agents

Industries: Professional, Science, & Technical

Summary
Details

Explain federal and state tax laws to individuals and companies.
Interview clients to obtain additional information on taxable income and deductible expenses and allowances.
Answer questions and provide future tax planning to clients.
Calculate form preparation fees according to return complexity and processing time required.
Use all appropriate adjustments, deductions, and credits to keep clients' taxes to a minimum.
Furnish taxpayers with sufficient information and advice to ensure correct tax form completion.
Prepare or assist in preparing simple to complex tax returns for individuals or small businesses.
Check data input or verify totals on forms prepared by others to detect errors in arithmetic, data entry, or procedures.
Review financial records, such as income statements and documentation of expenditures to determine forms needed to prepare tax returns.
Compute taxes owed or overpaid, using adding machines or personal computers, and complete entries on forms, following tax form instructions and tax tables.
Answer questions and provide future tax planning to clients.
Consult tax law handbooks or bulletins to determine procedures for preparation of atypical returns.
Schedule appointments with clients.

Reading Comprehension
- Reading work-related information.
Science
- Using scientific rules and strategies to solve problems.
Operations Analysis
- Figuring out what a product or service needs to be able to do.
Quality Control Analysis
- Testing how well a product or service works.
Management of Financial Resources
- Making spending decisions and keeping track of what is spent.
Active Learning
- Figuring out how to use new ideas or things.
Technology Design
- Making equipment and technology useful for customers.
Operation and Control
- Using equipment or systems.
Equipment Maintenance
- Planning and doing the basic maintenance on equipment.
Programming
- Writing computer programs.
Monitoring
- Keeping track of how well people and/or groups are doing in order to make improvements.
Persuasion
- Talking people into changing their minds or their behavior.
Service Orientation
- Looking for ways to help people.
Installation
- Installing equipment, machines, wiring, or computer programs.
Troubleshooting
- Figuring out what is causing equipment, machines, wiring, or computer programs to not work.
Systems Evaluation
- Measuring how well a system is working and how to improve it.
Active Listening
- Listening to others, not interrupting, and asking good questions.
Writing
- Writing things for co-workers or customers.
Speaking
- Talking to others.
Mathematics
- Using math to solve problems.
Critical Thinking
- Thinking about the pros and cons of different ways to solve a problem.
Operations Monitoring
- Watching gauges, dials, or display screens to make sure a machine is working.
Management of Material Resources
- Managing equipment and materials.
Complex Problem Solving
- Noticing a problem and figuring out the best way to solve it.
Learning Strategies
- Using the best training or teaching strategies for learning new things.
Social Perceptiveness
- Understanding people's reactions.
Coordination
- Changing what is done based on other people's actions.
Negotiation
- Bringing people together to solve differences.
Instructing
- Teaching people how to do something.
Judgment and Decision Making
- Thinking about the pros and cons of different options and picking the best one.
Equipment Selection
- Deciding what kind of tools and equipment are needed to do a job.
Systems Analysis
- Figuring out how a system should work and how changes in the future will affect it.
Management of Personnel Resources
- Selecting and managing the best workers for a job.
Repairing
- Repairing machines or systems using the right tools.
Time Management
- Managing your time and the time of other people.

Peripheral Vision
- Seeing something to your side when your are looking ahead.
Auditory Attention
- Paying attention to one sound while there are other distracting sounds.
Flexibility of Closure
- Seeing hidden patterns.
Speed of Closure
- Quickly knowing what you are looking at.
Trunk Strength
- Using your lower back and stomach.
Information Ordering
- Ordering or arranging things.
Gross Body Coordination
- Moving your arms, legs, and mid-section together while your whole body is moving.
Depth Perception
- Deciding which thing is closer or farther away from you, or deciding how far away it is from you.
Glare Sensitivity
- Seeing something even if there is a glare or very bright light.
Number Facility
- Adding, subtracting, multiplying, or dividing.
Response Orientation
- Quickly deciding if you should move your hand, foot, or other body part.
Rate Control
- Changing when and how fast you move based on how something else is moving.
Wrist-Finger Speed
- Making fast, simple, repeated movements of your fingers, hands, and wrists.
Inductive Reasoning
- Making general rules or coming up with answers from lots of detailed information.
Written Comprehension
- Reading and understanding what is written.
Fluency of Ideas
- Coming up with lots of ideas.
Problem Sensitivity
- Noticing when problems happen.
Speech Recognition
- Recognizing spoken words.
Near Vision
- Seeing details up close.
Gross Body Equilibrium
- Keeping your balance or staying upright.
Spatial Orientation
- Knowing where things are around you.
Manual Dexterity
- Holding or moving items with your hands.
Finger Dexterity
- Putting together small parts with your fingers.
Dynamic Flexibility
- Quickly and repeatedly bending, stretching, twisting, or reaching out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
Sound Localization
- Noticing the direction that a sound came from.
Mathematical Reasoning
- Choosing the right type of math to solve a problem.
Visualization
- Imagining how something will look after it is moved around or changed.
Selective Attention
- Paying attention to something without being distracted.
Static Strength
- Lifting, pushing, pulling, or carrying.
Dynamic Strength
- Exercising for a long time without your muscles getting tired.
Reaction Time
- Quickly moving your hand, finger, or foot based on a sound, light, picture or other command.
Oral Expression
- Communicating by speaking.
Originality
- Creating new and original ideas.
Visual Color Discrimination
- Noticing the difference between colors, including shades and brightness.
Night Vision
- Seeing at night or under low light.
Speech Clarity
- Speaking clearly.
Perceptual Speed
- Quickly comparing groups of letters, numbers, pictures, or other things.
Arm-Hand Steadiness
- Keeping your arm or hand steady.
Control Precision
- Quickly changing the controls of a machine, car, truck or boat.
Explosive Strength
- Jumping, sprinting, or throwing something.
Stamina
- Exercising for a long time without getting out of breath.
Time Sharing
- Doing two or more things at the same time.
Far Vision
- Seeing details that are far away.
Hearing Sensitivity
- Telling the difference between sounds.
Memorization
- Remembering words, numbers, pictures, or steps.
Multilimb Coordination
- Using your arms and/or legs together while sitting, standing, or lying down.
Speed of Limb Movement
- Quickly moving your arms and legs.
Extent Flexibility
- Bending, stretching, twisting, or reaching with your body, arms, and/or legs.
Category Flexibility
- Grouping things in different ways.
Oral Comprehension
- Listening and understanding what people say.
Written Expression
- Communicating by writing.
Deductive Reasoning
- Using rules to solve problems.

Customer and Personal Service
- Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
Personnel and Human Resources
- Knowledge of principles and procedures for personnel recruitment, selection, training, compensation and benefits, labor relations and negotiation, and personnel information systems.
Mathematics
- Knowledge of arithmetic, algebra, geometry, calculus, statistics, and their applications.
Food Production
- Knowledge of techniques and equipment for planting, growing, and harvesting food products (both plant and animal) for consumption, including storage/handling techniques.
Communications and Media
- Knowledge of media production, communication, and dissemination techniques and methods. This includes alternative ways to inform and entertain via written, oral, and visual media.
Physics
- Knowledge and prediction of physical principles, laws, their interrelationships, and applications to understanding fluid, material, and atmospheric dynamics, and mechanical, electrical, atomic and sub-atomic structures and processes.
Public Safety and Security
- Knowledge of relevant equipment, policies, procedures, and strategies to promote effective local, state, or national security operations for the protection of people, data, property, and institutions.
Transportation
- Knowledge of principles and methods for moving people or goods by air, rail, sea, or road, including the relative costs and benefits.
Telecommunications
- Knowledge of transmission, broadcasting, switching, control, and operation of telecommunications systems.
Computers and Electronics
- Knowledge of circuit boards, processors, chips, electronic equipment, and computer hardware and software, including applications and programming.
Mechanical
- Knowledge of machines and tools, including their designs, uses, repair, and maintenance.
Medicine and Dentistry
- Knowledge of the information and techniques needed to diagnose and treat human injuries, diseases, and deformities. This includes symptoms, treatment alternatives, drug properties and interactions, and preventive health-care measures.
Chemistry
- Knowledge of the chemical composition, structure, and properties of substances and of the chemical processes and transformations that they undergo. This includes uses of chemicals and their interactions, danger signs, production techniques, and disposal methods.
Geography
- Knowledge of principles and methods for describing the features of land, sea, and air masses, including their physical characteristics, locations, interrelationships, and distribution of plant, animal, and human life.
Education and Training
- Knowledge of principles and methods for curriculum and training design, teaching and instruction for individuals and groups, and the measurement of training effects.
History and Archeology
- Knowledge of historical events and their causes, indicators, and effects on civilizations and cultures.
Engineering and Technology
- Knowledge of the practical application of engineering science and technology. This includes applying principles, techniques, procedures, and equipment to the design and production of various goods and services.
Therapy and Counseling
- Knowledge of principles, methods, and procedures for diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation of physical and mental dysfunctions, and for career counseling and guidance.
Administrative
- Knowledge of administrative and office procedures and systems such as word processing, managing files and records, stenography and transcription, designing forms, and workplace terminology.
Production and Processing
- Knowledge of raw materials, production processes, quality control, costs, and other techniques for maximizing the effective manufacture and distribution of goods.
English Language
- Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, and rules of composition and grammar.
Law and Government
- Knowledge of laws, legal codes, court procedures, precedents, government regulations, executive orders, agency rules, and the democratic political process.
Biology
- Knowledge of plant and animal organisms, their tissues, cells, functions, interdependencies, and interactions with each other and the environment.
Sales and Marketing
- Knowledge of principles and methods for showing, promoting, and selling products or services. This includes marketing strategy and tactics, product demonstration, sales techniques, and sales control systems.
Building and Construction
- Knowledge of materials, methods, and the tools involved in the construction or repair of houses, buildings, or other structures such as highways and roads.
Economics and Accounting
- Knowledge of economic and accounting principles and practices, the financial markets, banking, and the analysis and reporting of financial data.
Design
- Knowledge of design techniques, tools, and principles involved in production of precision technical plans, blueprints, drawings, and models.
Sociology and Anthropology
- Knowledge of group behavior and dynamics, societal trends and influences, human migrations, ethnicity, cultures, and their history and origins.
Administration and Management
- Knowledge of business and management principles involved in strategic planning, resource allocation, human resources modeling, leadership technique, production methods, and coordination of people and resources.
Psychology
- Knowledge of human behavior and performance; individual differences in ability, personality, and interests; learning and motivation; psychological research methods; and the assessment and treatment of behavioral and affective disorders.
Philosophy and Theology
- Knowledge of different philosophical systems and religions. This includes their basic principles, values, ethics, ways of thinking, customs, practices, and their impact on human culture.
Fine Arts
- Knowledge of the theory and techniques required to compose, produce, and perform works of music, dance, visual arts, drama, and sculpture.
Foreign Language
- Knowledge of the structure and content of a foreign (non-English) language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition and grammar, and pronunciation.

Education

High school diploma or equivalent

Work Experience

No work experience

Training

1 to 12 months on-the-job training

Education and Training Opportunities

Washington Annual Salary

45120/yr

Washington Hourly Wage

21.69/hr

Currently Employed

2,020

Yearly Projected Openings

270

Conventional: People interested in this work like activities that include data, detail, and regular routines. They do well at jobs that need:

Cautiousness
Integrity
Attention to Detail
Dependability
Achievement Orientation

Desktop calculator
Desktop computers
Notebook computers

Accounting software
Calendar and scheduling software
Compliance software
Data base user interface and query software
Document management software
Electronic mail software
Financial analysis software
Human resources software
Internet browser software
Office suite software
Project management software
Spreadsheet software
Tax preparation software
Web page creation and editing software
Word processing software

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